2Definitions

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,--

¹[(a) "carrier" means a person who performs or undertakes to perform for hire, the carriage or part thereof, of goods by road, rail, inland waterways, sea or air;]

(b) "competent authority" means any person or authority authorised by the Central Government, by notification in the Official Gazette, to perform the functions of the competent authority under this Act;

(c)" consignee" means the person named as consignee in the multimodal transport contract;

(d) "consignment" means the goods entrusted to a multimodal transport operator for multimodal transportation;

(e) "consignor" means the person, named in the multimodal transport contract as consignor, by whom or on whose behalf the goods covered by such contract are entrusted to a multimodal transport operator for multimodal transportation;

(f) "delivery" means,--

(i) in the case of a negotiable multimodal transport document, delivering of the consignment to, or placing the consignment at the disposal of, the consignee or any other person entitled to receive it;

(ii) in the case of a non-negotiable multimodal transport document, delivering of the consignment to, or placing the consignment at the disposal of, the consignee or any person authorised by the consignee to accept delivery of the consignment on his behalf;

(g) "endorsee" means the person in whose favour an endorsement is made, and in the case of successive endorsements, the person in whose favour the last endorsement is made;

(h) "endorsement" means the signing by the consignee or the endorsee after adding a direction on a negotiable multimodal transport document to pass the property in the goods mentioned in such document to a specified person;

²[(i) "goods" means any property including live animals, containers, pallets or such other articles of transport or packaging supplied by the consignor, irrespective of whether such property is to be or is carried on or under the deck;

(j) "mode of transport" means carriage of goods by ³[road, air, rail] inland waterways or sea;

⁴[(k) "multimodal transportation" means carriage of goods, by at least two different modes of transport under a multimodal transport contract, from the place of acceptance of the goods in India to a place of delivery of the goods outside India;

(l) "multimodal transport contract" means a contract under which a multimodal transport operator undertakes to perform or procure the performance of multimodal transportation against payment of freight;

(la) "multimodal transport document" means a negotiable or non-negotiable document evidencing a multimodal transport contract and which can be replaced by electronic data interchange messages permitted by applicable law;

(m) "multimodal transport operator" means any person who--

(i) concludes a multimodal transport contract on his own behalf or through another person acting on his behalf;

(ii) acts as principal, and ⁵[not as an agent either of the consignor, or consignee or of the carrier] participating in the multimodal transportation, and who assumes responsibility for the performance of the said contract; and

(iii) is registered under sub-section (3) of section 4;

(n) "negotiable multimodal transport document" means a multimodal transport document which is--

(i) made out to order or to bearer; or

(ii) made out to order and is transferable by endorsement; or

(iii) made out to bearer and is transferable without endorsement;

(o) "non-negotiable multimodal transport document" means a multimodal transport document

which indicates only one named consignee;

(p) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this Act;

(q) "registration" means registration of multimodal transport operator under sub-section (3) of section 4;

⁶[(r) "special drawing rights" means such units of accounts as are determined by the International Monetary Fund;

(s) taking charge means that the goods have been handed over to and accepted for carriage by the multimodal transport operator.]